


My Darling Abigail

by Slow_Burn_Sally



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Love Confessions, Minor Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slow_Burn_Sally/pseuds/Slow_Burn_Sally
Summary: My Stephen Black and Mrs. Brandy Fix It FicReading about them in the book and never getting resolution broke my heart. I want them to have a happy ending.Plot? What Plot? Fluff Without Plot
Relationships: Stephen Black/Mrs Brandy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	My Darling Abigail

**Author's Note:**

> My Stephen Black and Mrs. Brandy Fix It Fic
> 
> Reading about them in the book and never getting resolution broke my heart. I want them to have a happy ending. 
> 
> Plot? What Plot? Fluff Without Plot

Mrs. Brandy wiped her hands upon her apron, tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and locked the front door of the shop for the night. It had been a long day. A new shipment of coffee beans and a large bundle of new spices had arrived that morning from the shipyard, and there had been more than the average number of customers in and out of the shop today. She and John and Toby had had quite the time of it, and she’d had to call in the new girl Beatrice and her brother Patrick from down the street to help with deliveries and with taking the customer’s money and wrapping up packages. 

All of them had been exhausted by supper time, and Mrs. Brandy had decided to close up a little early. It was May, the weather was temperate and the sun had started staying above the horizon longer and longer in the evenings. She wished to get the shop cleaned up and in good working order for tomorrow’s work day, and was in no mood to stay up settling the accounts until ten. 

After everything was put away and neatened, the floors swept and the day’s books balanced, it was already near seven o’clock. Mrs. Brandy climbed gratefully to the top of the stairs, to the small bedroom she had shared with her husband when he’d been alive. Although she now possessed a lovely house in Islington, along with maids to help her with her evening toilet, she still slept at the shop on weeknights. One had to be up with the dawn to get ready to open the shop in the mornings, and she preferred to be right here, ready to start the day, rather than making the trip from Islington. 

She lit a few candles in her small bedchamber and changed into her nightdress by the yellow glow of their flickering light. She washed her face and hands and took down her hair, which was waist length, long and rippling from being kept up in coiled plaits all day, soft brown, streaked with a few strands of silver. She was no longer young, being just over forty, and having spent much of her life doing the busy work of managing a successful grocer’s shop. It was not easy work, and involved much patience and cleverness and no small amount of physical strength. 

It had been roughly three months since the magicians had disappeared. London had been all aflutter with rumors of what might have transpired. Some said the earth had opened up and swallowed them down into the pits of Hell. Others claimed that they were sucked up into the sky in a great torrent of dark magic. Still others claimed that they had found a way to steal the royal jewels and had run off somewhere with the profits. The customers at Brandy’s gossiped and Mrs. Brandy heard all of it, though she did not add her own opinion to the tales making their way around London. 

A third individual had disappeared along with the magicians, and this particular individual was far less often the subject of speculation than they. This was due to him being naught but a servant. And a black servant at that. 

Stephen Black, the head butler for Sir Walter Pole’s household had disappeared around the time that Strange and Norrell had done. It had taken some time for people to notice his absence, as there was such a to do made of Lady Pole’s recovery and the disappearance of Strange and Norrell and all the queer happenings that had transpired at the time. But shortly afterward, Sir Walter had come around to inquire if Mrs. Brandy had seen Stephen. It was quite well known that she and Sir Walter’s butler had a good acquaintanceship, with both of them being so integral to the service of others, and with Stephen stopping by Brandy’s so very often to procure treats and dry goods and coffee for the Pole household. 

Mrs. Brandy had held back her tears and told him that no, she had not seen Stephen lately. In fact, she had seen him quite infrequently in the last few years. 

Mrs. Brandy sighed as she set about brushing out her hair, looking wistfully into the mirror as she remembered better times. Times when Mr. Black would come to her shop weekly with a list of goods to be purchased for Sir Walter and Lady Pole. How he’d smile his shy smile at her, so different from the officious and quite regal air he took with the servants he supervised. 

Oh how she’d loved to sit with him and offer him some treat or another (candied fruit from Paris, hot chocolate, a new sort of tea from the Orient) and chat with him. He was oh so polite and oh so learned, and he always had some clever tale for her about the goings on in Sir Walter’s house. Not gossip, mind you. Mr. Black was not a gossip. He would tell her instead of the antics of the servants, of something clever that Lady Pole had said, or the grandness of the parties that were so often held at Sir Walter’s residence. 

He was the handsomest of men. It did not matter one tiny bit to Mrs. Brandy that his skin was black. She did not understand how people could treat him as anything other than what he so clearly was, a gentleman of the best manners and most delightful disposition. Why, he was clearly Sir Walter’s equal in intelligence and (if she dared say so to herself) far his superior in looks. Yes, he was the finest looking gentleman she had ever laid eyes upon, and she had managed a shop in the heart of London for over twenty years. She had seen all manner of pleasing looking gentlemen, and Mr. Black was quite clearly the noblest and best of them all. 

Twas a pity that they would not have been able to marry. Nor would he have been able to return her affections, no matter how much she wanted him to. It was a thing that was simply not done. And truth be told, she had not known if he truly _had_ shared her feelings. She had a strong inclination that maybe, just maybe, he had. There had been something in the way he’d looked at her, smiled at her, welcomed her gentle touches to his hand and shoulder that told her that perhaps he loved her back. 

All of that was of no matter now of course. Not now that he had disappeared and did not seem to be returning. And he had been so frightfully ill before he’d left. His once gleaming, mahogany skin had come over gray and ashen. His sparkling eyes, so clever and so pretty had gone dull and dim. He’d looked exhausted and hopeless the times that she’d had occasion to be in his company in the years before he’d disappeared. And he’d seemed not to truly see her, instead seeming to look _through_ her. It had broken her heart in two to see him that way. She’d had not a clue as to what illness he’d suffered from. He had no marks upon his skin. He’d not had a cough, nor a fever as far as she could tell, and yet, it seemed as if he were wasting away nonetheless. 

And now, he was gone. Gone and perhaps…. No, Mrs. Brandy refused to think the worst could be true. She would simply imagine that he had run away to another city to make a new life for himself. This fantasy, concocted by Mrs. Brandy for the sole purpose of helping her believe that Mr. Black was alive and well, meant that she was also forced to admit that he had not loved her enough to take her with him. And she would gladly have followed him anywhere. To another city. To another country. To the mysterious shores of far off Africa, if he had only asked her to (which of course he had not...could not). But still, she would rather imagine him to be living a new life, somewhere without her, than to imagine that he was in the world no longer. That he had… No. She would not think it!

Belatedly, Mrs. Brandy realized that her face was wet and that she had been crying. She chided herself, putting down her hairbrush and going in search of a handkerchief to dry her tears. She was no longer a young, impressionable woman. She was now a seasoned business owner and woman of mature years. She should not be crying useless tears over a love that never could have been, for her tears would not bring her love back, nor would they assist in the running of her shop. 

“Do not cry my lady.”

Mrs. Brandy jumped and whirled about. She was quite shocked to see a strange man standing in her room, in a dark corner that had been empty of anything other than shadows the moment before. She clutched at the top of her nightdress and let out a surprised little shriek, for in the first few seconds of seeing this strange person, he appeared to be made of shadows. He was shrouded in them, wore them like a cloak, and yet, she could immediately see glimmers of light within the dark clouds that adorned his head and shoulders. He looked to be wearing a crown, for a silver band of bright metallic light encircled his brow. He stepped forward from the shadows and his face caught the glow of the candle upon Mrs. Brandy’s dressing table. And then, Mrs. Brandy grew very dizzy and all went dark. 

__________________________________

Mrs. Brandy awoke before she opened her eyes, and felt very warm and comfortable. She did not wish to fully wake yet, for when she did, she knew that she would have to go downstairs and start her day, and she was feeling so blissfully comfortable and sleepy. 

She realized that she was lying upon her bed and that a blanket, or something warm had been thrown across her lower half and that someone was holding one of her hands.  
  
Her eyes drifted open, and the first thing she saw was her own, familiar bedroom ceiling. She blinked her eyes and turned her head, and the next thing she saw was Stephen Black. 

He was kneeling at her bedside, her hand in his, looking very worried and very exceedingly handsome. 

“ _Mr. Black_ ,” Mrs. Brandy whispered, unsure if perhaps she hadn’t woken up at all, for this felt like a very pleasant dream. “Mr. Black, is that really you sir?”

He nodded. “Yes madam. It is I. Are you well? I was afraid that you had hurt yourself when you fainted. I am so very sorry to have caused you such dismay.”

“M-Mr. Black!” Mrs. Brandy sat up and quite awkwardly swung her feet over the side of her bed so that she could sit upon the edge of it. Mr. Black (unfortunately) had let go of her hand during this repositioning and she distantly wondered if it would be too forward to take it up again and clutch it to her breast. She abstained for the time being. “Mr. Black! I thought you had gone for good! You disappeared! It has been three months!” She tried to rise, realized in the process that she was still a little light headed and promptly sat back down again. 

Mr. Black got up from his position of kneeling by the bed and took a step back. Always so respectful, he kept his eyes averted, for she was in her night dress and he was alone with her in her bedchamber. He wore a very finely tailored black jacket and waistcoat and a neck cloth of white silk. In addition to these beautiful new clothes, he did indeed have a silver circlet about his brow. He resembled a foreign prince, like the ones she had seen in fairy tale books as a child, and she thought he looked ever so dashing. 

“I did disappear,” he said, his voice soft and measured and perhaps a little sad. “I went somewhere entirely different from England, and now I have returned.”

“Oh Mr. Black that is excellent news!” Mrs. Brandy clapped her hands and bounced a little bit upon the bed in happiness. “I was ever so worried that I would never see you again! Have you returned for good? Oh do say that you have! For I’ve-” here she paused, thinking her words were too intimate, but decided that in such a strange and wondrous circumstance, she did not at all care for propriety. “I have missed you so,” she finished softly, looking down at her hands, feeling a hot blush blooming in her cheeks. 

“I have missed you as well madam,” Mr. Black replied, and she dared to look up into his face, surprised and delighted at the softness and fondness she saw there. “That is the singular reason why I have returned this evening. To see you. To make sure you are well.”

“Oh Mr. Black sir,” Mrs. Brandy finally found the strength to stand, and she took a step toward him. She was pleased when he did not step away. “I was so very worried for you sir,” she said, daring to reach out a hand and place it gently upon his shoulder. Oh how solid he felt. How _real_. She could almost not believe it, that he was well and whole and standing before her. “You seemed very ill before you left. I thought perhaps that… that the worst had happened. And here you are! Looking very much recovered! You must tell me of what you’ve seen and where you’ve gone. I shall go and make some tea for us!” 

She turned to go downstairs, not wishing to let him out of her sight for a moment, but still knowing that offering him something to eat and drink was the proper thing to do, and she was nothing if not a thoughtful hostess. 

“Please stay,” he said and placed a hand upon her arm and she stopped mid step and turned back to him. “Please,” he repeated, his soft eyes roaming over her face. “I do not have long, and I wish to say some things and to ask you something.” 

“Oh,” breathed Mrs. Brandy. “Of course I shall stay. And I am most anxious to hear what you have to tell me, sir. Shall we sit?” She indicated her bed, as there were no chairs in the small bedchamber. She knew it was a very bold thing to do, but caring what others, people with whom she had never agreed, and people who were not even present in this moment thought of her was swiftly growing very small in her estimation of things that were important.

He nodded and together they sat upon the bed: he keeping a respectful distance, she wishing he would move closer. He did however take up her hand again, and this pleased her very much. She looked down and marveled at how nice her pale skin looked against his dark skin as he enfolded her smaller hand in his larger, warm one. 

“Mrs. Brandy,” he began, sounding cautious and perhaps a little apprehensive. “Am I to understand that you are fond of me?”

“Oh yes Mr. Black! I am ever so fond of you!” she exclaimed, giving his hand a squeeze. 

“You once told me that you would follow me anywhere,” he said, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb in a way she found very distracting. 

“And I meant it Mr. Black. I meant it with all my heart. You must know by now sir, that well...that I adore you,” she said, feeling her blush deepen at the boldness of her words, her eyes searching his face. 

“I did not know, but I hoped,” he replied. “I adore you as well, Mrs. Brandy” he said.

“Please call me Abigail,” she said, and was rewarded with a bright, gleaming smile from her friend. 

“And you may call me Stephen,” he replied, looking happier than she had seen him look in a long, long time. “Abigail,” he said, cautiously trying her Christian name for the first time. The sound of it on his lips made her shiver down her spine in the most delightful way. 

“Stephen,” she replied softly, daring to place her other hand over his. 

“Abigail, I love you most ardently,” he said.

“Oh Stephen! I love you as well. I have loved you for _such_ a long time,” 

“May I… may I kiss you Abigail?” he asked, and he looked suddenly quite shy. 

She did not bother answering him in words, and instead fell into his arms and pressed her mouth to his. His arms came around her and held her tightly and she wrapped hers around his neck and felt the unbelievable pleasure of his soft, warm lips against her own. She sighed happily and heard him sighing too, and oh it was the most lovely, most wonderful feeling! To finally have him in her embrace. To feel his body pressed to hers. She’d dreamed of such a thing for so very long and thought that it surely never would happen.

At some length he pulled away, a little breathless, his hands coming up to brush her hair from her face. She was not quite ready to stop kissing him and bestowed several little pecks to his cheeks and his lips and then took up his hands and kissed them both for good measure. 

“I had a question I wished to ask you,” he said, kissing her hands as well, the velvety softness of his lips feeling oh so delightful against her skin. “I cannot stay here and must go away again soon.”

“No!” She exclaimed, feeling a stab of despair at the thought of giving him up again.

“Do not fret my darling,” he said, squeezing her hands again in his. “I have come to ask you if you would come with me.”

“Of course,” she replied immediately, for wherever it was, she would follow.

“You have not heard me tell you the destination,” he said, but looking pleased at her eagerness nonetheless. 

“I do not need to,” she replied. “I said I would follow you anywhere and I meant it.”

“Would you follow me into the lands of Faerie?” he asked. 

“Of course, if that is where you must go than that is where I shall go as well,” she replied without giving it a second’s thought. “But you must tell me how you came to know such a land.”

“It is a long story, and not a pleasant one” Stephen said, “And I was prevented from telling you before now, but suffice it to say, I am now the king of a fairy kingdom, having deposed the previous ruler, who was a wicked and dishonorable person. I now sit upon the throne of the land of Lost Hope, and,” here he paused looking down at their still joined hands. “I need a queen to sit beside me,” he finished. 

“Stephen…” Mrs. Brandy breathed, feeling lost and confused and full of joy all at once. 

“Abigail,” he said, all seriousness now, his eyes trained earnestly upon her face, “will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? My queen?”

“Oh Stephen, of course I will! Yes!” Mrs. Brandy exclaimed. tears of joy sprang to her eyes and she threw her arms back around his neck and embraced him fiercely. He folded her up in his arms and returned her embrace with equal fierceness, and when he pulled away to look at her again, they were both crying. 

“We must leave soon,” he said. “I would hate to have you abandon your lovely shop, but there is no time to tie up loose ends. We can be married in the fairy court, for they do not care about our differences in station.”

“My shop is nothing without you to talk to, I shan't give leaving it a second thought,” she replied, and he smiled in response, a little sadly. 

“You need not bring anything with you, for in my home, I have all that a lady could ever need to be comfortable and well cared for,” he said, reaching up a hand to wipe away a tear that was making its way down her cheek with a careful thumb. “I shall give you closets full of dresses and place a crown of silver upon your lovely head.” 

And then they had to kiss just a little more, for Mrs. Brandy, soon to be Mrs. Black was far too overcome with love to help herself. 

Then they rose and Stephen waved his hand in the air and a shadowy doorway opened. Mrs. Brandy could just see the slender, silvery trunks of a forest of birch trees, shrouded in mist through the dark opening. This was surprising indeed, as they were on the second storey of her shop, and here was a strange wood where naught but open air should be. The strange door had appeared in her wall, as if it had always been there, and she marveled at the magic her husband to be wielded with such comfort and familiarity. 

Stephen kept her hand in his, and together they walked through the door and into the lands of fairy side by side. Mrs. Brandy did not look back once, for she was at last reunited with her beloved Stephen, and there was an exciting new adventure laid out ahead of her. She had indeed told him that she would follow him anywhere, and she felt herself smiling as the slightly damp, floral scented air of Lost Hope broke against her face, and the door closed behind them, disappearing as if it had never been there at all. 

  
  



End file.
